ROAD TRIP JOURNAL (Part 1)

Who's Afraid of the Dark?

When you’re 25, you’re expected to have outgrown certain things, such as a fear of the dark.

You may have gotten away with having a night light or wetting the bed when you were 23 or 24. But when you’ve reached the quarter-century mark, you’re supposed to turn in the Velcro wallet and start carrying yourself like an adult.

So I felt like less of a man Tuesday night when I got a tad frightened while alone in the dark.

It was the first night of my cross-country road trip, and I had decided to camp three miles up a mountain in Arizona’s Kaibab National Forest.

I learned a couple lessons that night: if you’re planning to go camping with your flashlight as your only source of light, be sure to bring some batteries. The sun apparently goes down at the end of the day in Arizona.

The flashlight gave out almost immediately after I finished pitching my tent. (Twenty-four-year-old Raam would’ve made a joke here…)

I was all alone in the pitch-black, my car a treacherous three-mile hike back down the mountain.

Unable to see even my hand in front of me, I groped around my camp site trying to find my bug spray and sandwich. I joked to myself that I was like Ray Charles shopping for sunglasses. But then I remembered he was dead and felt even worse.

I pictured what might be lurking in the thickets of trees around me: A bear ready to maul me to death for my veggie burgers or a psycho killer about to suffocate me with my Tempur-Pedic pillow.

Inside my pocket, my Swiss Army knife was at the ready in case some beast like a mountain lion or bunny rabbit needed its throat slit.

I worried, though, if I’d be able to pull out the blade in time from among the corkscrew and other tools. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to wave the knife at the bear, but damn if I wasn’t going to file his claws or open his canned soup.

I made a makeshift campfire by piling my cell phone, Palm Pilot and digital camera inside a fire ring and turning them on. Whenever I needed to pee, I made a headlamp by strapping my illuminated iPod around my head. Then, iPeed.

When it was time for bed, I climbed into my tent, zipping it shut tight. I had a fitful sleep. I had my reoccurring dream where I’m sleeping with the grandmothers from various sitcoms.

“No, not Mona!” I woke up screaming. I was relieved to find I was still in my tent about to be mauled by a lion and not in bed with the G.M.I.L.F. from “Who’s the Boss?”

I stared up at the roof of my tent and reflected on the position I was in. I was 25-years-old, and I was still scared of the dark. Maybe it’s because I still think of myself sometimes as an 11-year-old, not the adult staring back at me in the mirror.

Just then, I heard what sounded like a man’s voice from outside the tent. “Enough with that mushy shit,” the man seemed to be saying. "This is the outdoors, man, not Oprah."

I poked my head out but didn’t see anything. I must've imagined it. I peered out into the darkness and listened to the crickets and squirrels.

I then looked up toward the sky for the first time. It was shimmering and brilliant.

I zipped up the tent around me from the neck down, leaving my head exposed to the cold mountain air. I gazed up at the Milky Way sprinkled with billions of bright stars and the sliver of a moon. I couldn’t help thinking, maybe the night isn’t so dark after all.

(Editors Note: Twenty-four-year-old Raam would have preferred to end with a Uranus joke.)




(Tomorrow is Part II entitled, "A Hole lot of Fun at the Grand Canyon.")